Me and Rach have a thing about the Cotswolds, its a magical place where we go to recharge with enough attractions to keep our minds active. After three or four consecutive holidays in the North Norfolk coast (Hunstantion then finally Cromer) in Holiday cottages while the children where small, we stayed at Burton on the Water for two weeks last year and the kids loved it. I do have some pictures saved, but wasn’t blogging regularly then so failed to mention it (damn you addition to farcebook 🙂 ). On the last day but one day while having a cafe lunch in Morton on the Marsh we resolved to come back, but since we had literally maxed out on the cottage option (we stayed in an expensive once in a life time cottage which is on all the Bourton postcards) we decided to save a ton of money and go camping this year.  Which we did and while being very hard work (I’m still shattered a week later) it was full of Awesome and Win! Especially good for the kids since from litterally the first hour they where running about and playing with other children their age.

This time round we stayed the Cirencester end of the Cotswolds, in a small but picturesque village of Mitchinhampton on Tobbacconist Farm (which I give a full unreserved 10 out of 10, perfect for us).

Highlights of the ten days we where there:

• Revisiting the Cotworlds Wildlife Park (probably my favourite zoo).
• Newark Park, a nice gentle afternoon visit with just enough for the kids to do while I soaked in the history.
• Cirencester, the first time we took time to look around for a full day without making shopping our priority (a win of organisation on our part!). The Musseum, the awesome Crocodile Toyshop (which yielded ace toys and kites, and despite Games Workshop begging the owner has no Warhammer nonsense – because he thinks they are a bad company) with its Star Wars lego displays, and tea at Pizza Express (which has good memories of the kids growing up from previous visits).
• Bourton on the Water – revisiting one of our favorite places. A bit like going back in time, since we stayed there for two weeks literally to the year, and I did nearly started heading up the road to the cottage we stayed in last year!
• Cattle Country. This was Henry’s choice, a big play centre with indoors and outdoors. Made me want to be 10 again 🙂
• Minchinhampton itself. The take out pizza van on Tuesdays. The common where cattle (and golfers) roam free. The village centre with its small high street of shops and restaurants (The Kitchen with its veggie breakfast on the last day and Henry’s Ice Cream parlour).
• Nailsworth. A late discovery that we could have visited more. A shoping centre for arty stuff without being pointless and a had a nice laid back pace of life.
• Dyrham Park another National Trust place (we are members and they always have activities that keep our kids entertained), which I thought was going to blow because of the roof restoration but actually was fantastic because of it! If you are in the area go check it out and go on the roof before its all done in December.

it was a very different experience to our usual Stow on the World/Bourton on the Water/Shakespear Country Cotwolds experience, but we enjoyed it and there was still tons to do, so we may be revisiting it or moving slightly south down Somerset way next year.

The only sting in the tail was the 12 hours it took to get home on Friday (3 hours packing tent +9 hours in traffic mainly due to delays on the M5!).